Reply to Cracking the code—why labels don’t matter so don’t drive yourself crazy

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]  Good post OP. Parents get themselves crazy over labels, even when the label fits. The goal is the get your child the best support possible for his/her unique needs and to keep your child from turning off of school and feeling dejected. As a parent of a kid with SN I understand their initial reluctance, but I am always surprised by the parents who never get past it.

I have known parents who did not disclose anything and let their kids flounder rather than even get an IEP. I have known parents who went to great lengths to find the 1 clinician willing to call ASD ADHD. (Newsflash: many clinicians consider them on the same spectrum and ADHD does not imply higher functioning than ASD-even socially believe it or not. Many kids with ASD get the needed social skills interventions and by a certain point can function better socially than kids with ADHD who were not getting social help despite deficits).

As parents I think we need to alas ask ourselves

1.) Is my reluctance to accept a label about my child's needs or about my ego

2.) Am I doing the best I can t get my child the services he/she needs to thrive or even just manage?

3.) Am I accepting my child for who he/she is or for what his/her actual needs are?

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It's not ego. It's the fact that [b]mislabeled children rarely get the help they need.[/b]

It's much, much tougher to go in and fight against the grain. It's so much easier to roll over and let them label your child with whatever suits their purpose.

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Says who?

As a parent, I did all the right things, caught signs of delay early, did all the EI interventions, went to developmental pediatricians and the psychologists for evaluations and testing.  My kid has complex diagnoses and is not autistic.  I thought getting an IEP for school would be a cake walk to get him the help he needed.

Boy was I wrong.  I did not understand why the school district kept bringing up autism.  I did all the leg work for them had a stack of reports.  I was frustrated, angry, tired, had moments of doubt--were all these experts wrong?

For those who don’t want the autism diagnosis b/c their kid would not get into such and such private school.  It’s great you have that option.  For those who insist that a medical professional misdiagnosed their child, I don’t know if you’re in denial or if the diagnosis is accurate.  You however, have the option to re-test, re-assess, re-evaluate.

So when private school isn't an option and you already know what your kid's actual diagnoses are, where do you go from here?  When your kid doesn’t fit neatly into a checkbox, you can get into a Mexican standoff with the public school or you can negotiate for what your kid needs.  Just getting that educational designation of any kind means nothing.  It is still a struggle to get appropriate supports.  It's never ending and exhausting.

Once I understood why the system works (or doesn't) the way that it does, is how I came to my version of “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”  I am and have always been my kid’s biggest and best advocate.
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